Imaginary
by DuckofIndeed
Summary: That was the advantage of imaginary friends; you can make them into whatever you wish. But that was the thing about imaginary friends; they aren't supposed to exist.


I have been in a major horror mood lately (if this one counts as horror), and so I wrote another spooky story. This version of Slender Man is actually based off of some folklore I heard about that is quite similar to him, including a tall man that lurks out in the woods and is used to scare children into behaving. He goes by many names, but one of them is the Tall Man….

And Slender Man is property of someone else. Not sure who, but someone else.

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><p><strong>Imaginary<strong>

People said that Meg didn't have any friends, but that simply wasn't true because she had all the friends she could ever want. Whenever she got the chance, she'd go out into the deep, grey woods behind her house to play with the friends she had made. Michael was best for playing hide and seek and for building forts, you know, the kinds of things you could get dirty doing, while Isabel was more refined and was just right for gazing at the stars from the tree house built for her big brother before he grew bored of it, or for having tea parties where she got all the snacks because Isabel was always dieting and refused to eat anything.

And while this was all well and good, and Meg got by perfectly well with these friends tailored just to fit her, not everyone thought this idea was as good as they ought to have, and they made it clear to her just how much they disapproved with pushing and nasty names, and she returned to the woods many an evening to cry and wish that her troubles would go away, and while they tried ever so hard to comfort her, her own, private friends could never keep the tears away for long.

Michael and Isabel and all the rest were truly wonderful friends, but they could do nothing to stop the other kids from picking on her, and it seemed even her family was sided against her when they suggested she found _real_ friends to play with and no more of these so-called "imaginary" ones, but they simply _weren't_ fake because the fun they had wasn't.

Then one day, she decided she'd make for herself a new friend. This friend was so much taller than anyone she knew because he could do so much more than they, and he wore a fine, tailored suit just like father did whenever he would come home from work long ago when she was even littler than she was now, to wipe away all the tears little girls had. He still wore that suit, but he no longer comforted her now that she had her friends to visit. But, her new friend was missing a face because she couldn't come up with one that seemed right, and she simply settled for calling him the Tall Man because she ran out of ideas for any good names that might fit him.

She came to him everyday after school to tell him about what the other kids had done, and he never passed any judgment, for he hadn't any mouth with which to do so. He just stayed ever so silent, the best listener of all her friends, and while the Tall Man never played with her, she thought he might become even better a friend than all the ones that did.

Tobi, the mean, little red-haired boy who liked to push her in the dirt and taunt her for the fact that none of her imaginary friends would come to help her to her feet went missing one day. Though many people searched, his parents and the police and the adults who worried the same might happen to their children, they never found any sign of him, and Meg went to the Tall Man to ask him if he knew where Tobi had gone, even if he _was_ a nasty, little boy, but he told her nothing, and she wondered if she should have given him a face when she created him.

Tobi was the first, but he wasn't the last, and the children that teased her disappeared, one by one, first the ones that made fun of her, then the ones that claimed it was her fault because the only kids that disappeared were the ones she didn't like and that didn't like her. But, soon, no one at all picked on her anymore. In fact, no one at all even _talked_ to her anymore, just her imaginary friends, and she didn't know if she even needed _them_ anymore. The Tall Man cared the most about her because he was the only one willing to do something about the cause of her tears. Even her own parents had done nothing for her, and they were supposed to love her even more than her friends did.

Her other, private friends eventually left, but it was okay because the Tall Man remained, always standing so quietly nearby when she spoke to him out in the old, grey woods, and her parents told her to stay inside and to not wander out when she got home anymore, but this only meant she had to be more careful when she went to visit him. The Tall Man really was the best friend she had ever made because he was the only one that could grant her wishes.

Years passed, and when she asked him to take away Ms. Martin for being so unfair in how she graded essays or Whitney for getting more attention than she because she was much prettier, he did it. He always made her problems go away, and she didn't remember ever being so happy before. No one teased her anymore, and she only had good teachers now, and the old woman that used to scold her for picking her roses was no longer living in the house two doors down. And if her parents ever got too forceful in forbidding her from the woods, she knew what to do about it.

But, a time came when the Tall Man didn't seem to listen to her anymore, and when she asked him to get rid of the people she disliked, she would return to school to find they were still there. So finally, Meg had no choice but to ask him why he wouldn't do what she said anymore. It was cold that night, and the trees were even more grey than ever in the winter chill, and though she had to bundle up in a sweater and jacket, that still wasn't enough to stop her shivering, and it made her rather angry that he could always wear the same suit and never get cold. And once she got done scolding him for becoming such a bad friend, she turned to leave, for there was no need to expect an answer, because she had never received one before.

"You've become a very naughty, little girl," he said, and she stopped in her tracks and turned back to him.

"The blood of those people is on your hands because of what you had me do to them."

Meg blinked. He looked so much closer now, even after she had begun to walk away from him. "I-I'm sorry," she said, but he resumed the silence she was far more used to hearing, and an owl cooed somewhere off in the cold, dark woods. "I'm sorry."

She began to run, but she didn't get very far. And she never made a selfish wish ever again, though she never made a wish again at all.

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><p>I hope you enjoyed. It's not my favorite Slender Man story, but I liked the idea of an imaginary friend becoming a bit too real. Please review, my dear readers.<p> 


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